


Like Gravity

by Wordlet



Category: Starlight Brigade - TWRP ft. Dan Avidan (Music Video)
Genre: Gen, Getting to Know Each Other, I want to flesh that out more still but for now, Language Barrier, Meet the Family, Nonbinary Character, Please just let me hold something soft and tangible for these characters, headcanons galore, they/them pronouns for Strive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:55:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22797415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wordlet/pseuds/Wordlet
Summary: Strive learns about their teammates in small, unexpected ways- and they learn about Strive right back.
Relationships: Strive & the Starlight Brigade
Comments: 18
Kudos: 76





	Like Gravity

**Author's Note:**

> This music video captured my heart and I will carve this lore from fresh stone if I must. Luckily, there are plenty of people who have ideas and interest in my own interpretations and allowed me to grow my thoughts into something semi-cohesive.  
> I'd like to do more someday but for now, a magnum opus for my thoughts on Starlight Brigade.
> 
> Quick note:  
> UPA* = Universal Phonetic Script  
> VPAT/VPATe** = Void Particle Acquisition Team

* * *

**Like Gravity**

* * *

There was no formal introduction. Strive was alone, and then, they were with the brigade. That’s all there was to it.

“ _Come in, streaking vessel,_ ” A voice had spoken straight into the cockpit, laughter evident in their tone. The blue screen that lit up where Strive couldn’t possibly ignore it bore an emblem they didn’t recognize, and then a grinning face that looked nothing like any person they’d ever seen. “ _My name is Dr. Sung and I’m with the Starlight Brigade. What brings you to this sector of space today?”_

 _“_ How do I answer a call?” They’d asked aloud, startled by the existence of another person out in the near emptiness of space. “Am I in trouble?”

“ _Not with me you aren’t.”_ The image had said, smile unwavering. “ _As for the communicator, I’m not sure how your ship works but it sounds like you’ve got it figured out.”_

“Oh,” They gasped, leaning forward a little to peer closer at the screen. “Um, my name is Strive. I’m… exploring, I guess.” They gaze back up out of the viewing port. The endless dark and drifting shadows of ship wreckage isn’t the adventure they dreamed it would be, but they never thought a quest like this would be all crystal glow and thermal vents anyhow. “I don’t even know what a sector of space is.”

“ _Ah, a virgin flyer!”_ Dr. Sung announces happily. “ _Welcome to the skies, young Strive. My compatriots and I extend our most exuberant greetings.”_

“Where _are_ you?” Strive asks, glancing ahead of them again, there’s nothing but empty space. “How close do you have to be to connect to my ship…?”

“ _Not very close at all,”_ Dr. Sung informs them. “ _But, as it happens, I am on your left.”_

They glance to the side and sure enough, there’s an orange ship rising out of the dark from behind. The cockpit is visible, the other ship only two or three wingspans away, and Dr. Sung glances their way for long enough to flash them a thumbs up.

“Whoa,” They breathe.

“ _’m flattered!”_ Dr. Sung laughs and suddenly other screens are flickering to life around their head, strange faces of strange people that mutter and wave and call greetings across the empty space to reach them. A final screen appears, lower than the others and three dimensional. All around a blue dot are five other green dots.

Space doesn’t seem so empty. Strive is with the Starlight Brigade. That’s all there is to it.

* * *

“Strive, what species are you? I’m writing a report.” Commander Meouch asks one day as they cut through the command room on their way to the kitchen. Strive pauses at the door, glancing back at the other, reclined in a chair in front of one of the computer screens. He’s got an empty mug of coffee next to him and a twitch to his tail that usually means he’s annoyed. Or at least that’s what they’ve gathered from the past week. Strive steps away from the door and comes to stand next to his chair.

“I’m a Moebian. What are you writing a report for?”

“The Mercenary Board. They may have granted me leave from service at home to serve here on the Brigade but I’m required to keep them updated on the status of the mission.”

“To bring the stars back?”

“To bring the stars back.”

Strive hovered, watching Meouch’s finger pads smudge against the keyboard hologram and cast unfamiliar symbols onto the screen. They’ve thought about the lives of the other brigadiers, of course, and picked up a small thing here and there, but… Meouch is no mercenary. He’s loyal to the cause and an incredible pilot and one of the founding members of the Brigade. Did they get it wrong…?

“You can ask, you know.” Meouch gruffs, slanting them a glance with round pupils. “I might be writing in Filenian but that’s not to keep it private. I’m only being considerate. The board will be offended if I make them dig out a translator.”

“The Mercenary Board?” They blurt, “I didn’t know you were a mercenary!”

Meouch laughs and Strive feels their shoulders melt back down. They smile, already relieved. Meouch’s tail is still twitching but it’s not annoyed anymore.

“I’m not in the way you’re thinking.” He assures them. “My planet is very fond of rules and social order. And patriotism. And not so much of teamwork or collaboration. At least not outside of itself. Any soldier that wants to serve for another organization without being dishonorably discharged from future service at home needs to file to do so through the Mercenary Board.” He taps out a few more characters into the report. Strive can see ‘Moebian’ in the UPS* font, mixed in with the unfamiliar. “I keep up with the reports, of course. I’m on thin ice as it is.” He rolls his eyes. “Not a lot of us leave the planet, at least not till we’ve aged out of the service. And there aren’t a lot of males in the combat-based chapters of the military as it is so all of my female superiors think I’m some kind of flake.” He sighs but then glances at Strive, a stern line stretching across his muzzle. “Of course, the whole universe loses with the stars gone. I serve my planet and thousands of others this way. There were whole planets rendered uninhabitable. I came up here to fight for what belongs to us all.” He pumps a fist in front of him and Strive grins. “The VPATes** aren’t paying me enough to actually cover what I do. Aren’t paying any of us enough, actually, but what else are we gonna do? Stand by and let the world die?”

“No way!” Strive pumped their own fist back. “We’re the Starlight Brigade!”

“That’s right!” Meouch laughed, loud and deep in his chest in a way that left Strive’s own chest feeling hollow with the sound reverberating through it. “And if I’ve gotta file a bunch of silly reports to serve with you, that’s what I’ll do. In fact,” He paused, thinking, and Strive decided that the gleam in his eye was a very good sign. “I never asked much about where you’re from.” He reached over and pulled one of the hover chairs closer. “Want to help me give the Mercenary Board something really tough to read- all very important information of course. Updates on my teammates!”

“Sure,” Strive sat down in the chair and tapped their fingers on the desk space in front of them. They weren’t quite sure where to start. But, they knew what they’d still like to learn about Meouch’s home, so they’d start with that kind of stuff. “Okay, so Moebians are from the planet Moebius. It’s not a very big planet and the people there don’t usually leave it. We have a very thin atmosphere so the skies there always have the best views of the stars…”

* * *

Parking their ship is always their least favorite part of a flight. Their ship is _fast_ and that’s great! But easing it into the loading dock isn’t the most simple of endeavors. By the time Strive finally has it set down a few of the VPATe workers are ready to do the final tie ins and airlock sealing and Strive is happy to leave them to it- but stays to watch anyway. Just in case.

They’re not sure why, but their ship doesn’t… react well to other people. Not bad exactly, but they don’t think that anybody else would be able to pilot it and sometimes the landing wheels will stick to the ground when the dockworkers try to get it sorted. So they stay.

“You’ve noticed it then.” Strive jumps and turns around, finding Ninja Brian standing beside his own ship, a black cloth in his hands as he wipes down a tool Strive couldn’t begin to guess the function of.

“W-what?” Brian doesn’t talk to them as much as the others. He’s around, of course, and Strive thinks he’s incredible and holds him in very high esteem as a team member... but they don’t _talk._ As far as they can tell, Ninja Brian doesn’t talk much at all.

“You’ve noticed,” He nods at the ship that the workers are taxying into the appropriate ship dock. “The way it changes to fit you. I know you don’t have much experience with ships so I wondered when you would.”

Strive blinks. What are they supposed to say to that? _Glad I got it then!_ Or _I got it now, I guess?_

“It confused me for a bit.” They settle on, hesitant. It feels strange to talk to him from so far away so they edge a few steps closer, hovering on the threshold of Brian’s moor. “I don’t know- I mean, I don’t think that other ships… do that. I thought I was making it up.”

“You aren’t.” Brian assures them. “That’s just what Void ships do.”

“Void ships?” They exclaim, startled. “But that’s not- I’m not-”

“Isn’t it?” Ninja Brian raises one thick eyebrow in challenge. Strive has always been amazed by how much of an expression he has when they can’t see most of his face. “It didn’t look like that when you found it.” He paused, seemed to take in Strive’s expression and posture and the intensity always in his eyes seemed to ease a little bit. "Mine didn't either. Mine wasn't even a ship."

"Your ship is made of… void?" They ask, incredulous. "But… We're fighting the void."

"The void isn't evil." Ninja Brian says and Strive crinkles their nose in confusion. Anything that would steal starlight for itself feels awfully evil to Strive. "It's just a state other than matter. There's no morality or thought process." He glances back at his ship, a collection of tools lined up on the ground near an open panel on the underside. "You don't know anything about my home planet." Strive shakes their head. "Come here. I’m going to show you something.”

Strive glances back at their ship but it seems handled. Part of them wants to make an excuse but most of them is curious and a little excited by what Brian is saying. Strive chews on their tongue subtly to fidget. And besides...They want to know more about him, so they turn away from the busier parts of the dock and hurry over to Brian’s side.

The older brigadier nods at them and then places his palm flat against the burnt orange outer shell of his ship. “Among my people, it's an honored practice to be trained to sculpt void particles." He pressed hard against the ship for a moment and then, as though wiping away dust, swept his palm away- leaving a streak of glimmering purple wherever his fingers brushed.

Strive gasped, leaning close to stare at their reflection in the shiny surface.

“A second layer of paint…?” They murmured but Brian shook his head.

“This ship is made of void particles. So is yours. Void particles are naturally occuring and indestructible, but there is no place for them in the cosmic order. They constantly use this indefinition to redefine themselves.”

“But… The Great Void stole all the stars.” Strive argues. “If we’re in charge of scattering the particles why can you and I use ships made of them?”

“Void Particles move towards purpose, you needing a ship has given millions of them a purpose that is much more powerful than rejoining the Great Void.” Brian explains. “My title, Ninja, means ‘person who comes from nothing’ on my home planet. It is given to those learning to manipulate the void.” Ninja Brian didn’t hesitate so much as he paused before clapping a hand on Strive’s shoulder. The Moebian did their best not to show their surprise at the gesture. “If you were from my planet,” Brian finally says with another light pat, “You’d be a skilled Ninja. The third or fourth in your class, surely. Someday I might show you how to manipulate the particles more purposefully. For now, you’re doing good, holding that thing together.” He releases them and bends down, sweeping up the tools in a quick motion and then striding off towards the maintenance office.

“Thanks.” They blurt as they realize they’ve been dismissed. Still, a smile pulls at their cheeks. They don’t understand _everything_ that’s been said to them. But… if Brian is more willing to talk to them now then they’ll figure out more later. They wonder how much training Ninja Brian went through to become a Ninja, and why the void particles of their ship do what Strive wants but not anyone else who slides into the cockpit. Actually…

“Hey, wait!” They call, stumbling after Ninja Brian in sudden realization. “What do you mean holding it together- is it trying to fall apart? Brian?”

* * *

“Do you _all_ know instruments?” They ask, incredulous, as even Ninja Brian finds a place on the lower half of the keyboard Sung was spinning melodies out of.

“Kid, I have a _degree_ in keytar.” Dr. Sung grins and plugs the melody into the bridge that Phobos had just strummed the last chord out of.

Strive hadn’t thought anything of it when Havve had lumbered away from the dinner table before anyone had finished their meals. No one had said anything, the meal and accompanying discussion had just continued with one less contributor- who already didn’t contribute much to conversation. But then, Dr. Sung had finished and headed in the same direction, then Brian and Meouch, and when Phobos had started to get up Strive had all but shoveled the rest of their meal into their mouth and hurried to catch up. They followed him down a hallway Strive hadn’t had time to explore yet and found the rest of the brigade here in an open room with a drum set and some instrument cases. While Phobos had slung a guitar strap around his shoulders and strummed a few chords to tune Stive had lingered by the door, watching, trying to place where in the VPAT ship they even were. The first song felt like habit. It was a little clumsy and they talked through it, Sung calling out jokes and Phobos bringing his guitar around to jam next to Havve in the back with the drums. Ninja Brian had stood back there too, watching them all until towards the end of the second song he’d come forward and added another layer to Sung’s keyboard melody.

“Do you not know any?” Phobos asks, lowering his guitar to rest on it’s strap. “It would be fine but we could teach you. We taught Meouch.”

“I learned the basics while on tour through the Trebalto galaxy.” The commander counters, affronted. “If it had been up to you lot alone I’d have known how to riff and nothing else.”

The song came around to an end and Havve stood up from behind the drums, metal joints creaking as he retracts his extra arms to avoid knocking into the cymbals.

“Feel good, my friend?” Sung asks cheerily.

“My function capabilities have improved.” Havve agrees. “I require approximately one more hour of music to be charged given the current rate of production.” He angles his head towards Strive. “My intended function is music production. It is also how I recharge. The brigade assists.”

“Oh,” They say, and then _“oh!”_

“You don’t have to be good. But you also don’t have to join.” Meouch assures them but Strive shakes their head.

“No! I’d love to help. I could play the crystal lute back home, I mean, _a little_ , but I haven’t got one here. It wouldn’t fit anyway. With you all.” They hesitate. “You don’t have any spare instruments?”

“There is no more space on this keyboard.” Ninja Brian intones and Sung laughs uproariously.

“You could sing.” Havve suggests, eye bulbs blinking. “Not all the songs have lyrics but some do.”

“Sung sings a lot too but you could cover some.” Phobos agrees. “If you want.”

“I…” Strive hesitates again. They want to contribute, and they feel like this is part of it somehow. Being a brigadier. They don’t feel forced but… they want to. They want to be a part of _all_ of this.

But.

They can’t _remember_ the last time they sang in front of someone else. There hasn’t been much reason to sing for most of their lifetime. They don’t even think they’re good.

“That’s just cruel, Phobos, Havve.” Sung grins at them. “If they want to sing now that’s fine but if they want to practice a little before they join us,” He turns to smile at Strive, “I’d be happy to go over the lyrics with you some other time, Strive. I’m no voice teacher but I can help you touch up your pipes too, if you don’t have much experience.”

“I’d like that a lot!” Strive agrees before they can change their mind. “Until then can I, just,” They glance around and find a set of drum sticks. No doubt they were abandoned when Havve came with his own built in pair. “Hit some stuff?” They snatch up the sticks and look to their teammates hopefully. “Quietly. And I’ll stay on beat-”

“My programming does not perceive music as good or bad,” Havve assures them. “Only that there is music being made. Percussion is my preferred vehicle for sound production as well.”

“Eloquently put,” Phobos snorts but sets his fingers on the strings and strums out a few chords that the others seem to recognize. “Ready for a ride, Strive?”

Strives holds up their drumsticks and nods, grinning.

* * *

There’s a new worker in the cafeteria and Strive doesn’t know how to ask for the tasteless sugar pudding instead of the chocolate flavored one. They don’t realize this until they get right up to the counter and ask for rice only to recieve a garbled mutter in return. They look up and blink at the server. 

“[Hello]” the server says in clumsy universalian. Her name tag says that she goes by Emmy and is considered a female of her species. Strive had stopped wearing their name tag a long time ago, everybody on the ship knew them, but now they wished they had it so she could more easily understand who they were. First impressions were important.

“[Hello],” They say back. “[could I have rice pudding?]” She looks at them, confused.

“[Pudding?]” She says and then spills out a few other sounds that they are fairly certain they couldn’t make. Strive glances down at the empty spot on their tray. All crew members are required to fill each section of their tray with the appropriate nutrient source each meal. Strive understands the logic. But most things the kitchen served were far more flavorful than anything they’d eat on Moebius. It was a lot to take in sometimes.

“[Rice pudding],” they clarify, trying not to grimace. “Ah [white pudding], [lumpy], um, [v-vanilla]?” They didn’t know how to say it in a way she would understand. She looked more confused with every word they said and Strive felt increasingly foolish on top of that.

Suddenly, a gloved hand plops down on their shoulder and they jump, glancing up to find Lord Phobos standing beside them.

“Emmy!” He greets her and she smiles back, spilling a torrent of sounds into the space between the three of them. Strive watches them go back and forth, hopelessly disconnected from what is going on. Then she gestures at them, smile wide, and they hand the tray over. She scoops her big spoon and plops a pile of glistening white pudding onto their tray.

“[Thank you],” They say, startled but glad.

“[You’re welcome].” Emmy says proudly.

Phobos says something else and guides Strive away from the counter. They watch the rice pudding jiggle on their tray.

“Thanks.” They say, a little confused. “What language was that?”

“[Spanish],” He says. “It’s from a planet called [Earth]. I lived there for a few years. Picked up some things.”

“Like a language?” Strive persists, impressed. “Like, an alien language? That couldn’t have been easy!”

“I was a kid,” Phobos shrugs. “And I learned more than just [Spanish]. [Earth] has a ton of languages. And that was before they opened borders for space travellers. Growing up there meant I picked up a lot of stuff.”

“Wow.” Strive looked down at their pudding. “What did you say that meant rice pudding?”

“[rice pudding],” Phobos says slowly.

“[rice pudding],” They repeat. “[rice pudding].”

“Yeah, you’ve got it.” Phobos claps his hand on their shoulder. “There’s two words out of a language.”

“Why can’t she speak universalian?” They ask, confused. “I’ve heard that [Earth] is really diverse. Like, a galactic roadstop that a lot of people have set up?”

“You could call it that.” Phobos snorts. “It’s the only habitable planet in that solar system so it gets a lot of traffic. People stop there and sometimes they don’t leave. It’s a planet pretty stuck in its ways and universalian never took off. At least not among the natives.” He shrugs. “It’s also the cheapest place I’ve ever been to buy translators, so that probably has something to do with it.”

“But it’s _universalian_ ,” Strive said, “It’s the language _built_ to get spoken by everyone. I mean, some species are missing a few sounds, and there is so much vocabulary that almost no one knows all of it, but it’s intuitive. You should be able to communicate with it at least for basic conversations.”

“She’ll get it eventually.” Phobos says confidently. “She’s just never needed it before. She probably thought she was pretty good at it till she started working here. It’s a tough first day when you realize that you don’t know what anyone is saying.”

“I guess.” Strive trailed off, thinking of when they’d first gotten the translated radio calls from the rest of the brigade. They’d thought they were doing fine until they were out of the ship and talking to them in person. Without the ship’s built in translators they’d had to respond as best as they could in the shoddy universalian the village library had had a text book on. Now that they think of it, Phobos had been best able to understand them until they’d spruced up their universalien and the rest of the brigadiers had adopted them into their mish mash of vernaculars.

They couldn’t imagine growing up with the whole universe full of languages walking through their front door and not putting the effort into learning _something_. But they also couldn’t imagine learning a language that only existed on one planet unless it was their home planet.

“You weren’t born on Earth, right?” They ask as Phobos drops into a chair on the other side of the table. “Because you don’t look like Emmy.” At least they didn’t think Phobos did. They hadn’t had much opportunity to see underneath his helmet.

“All the people on [Earth] look different from each other.” Phobos explains, “But no, I was an immigrant. Born on a planet called Sordor, moved to the neighboring galaxy when the next planet closest to the [sun] had a war with chemical fallout that washed into my home’s atmosphere. [Earth] was a nice enough place, my respiration was messed up from home but [Earth] had the tech to get me this respirator helmet.” He reached up and tapped on his goggles. “Now I can breathe almost any atmosphere. And after a few years there I know [spanish], [english], and [portugese], plus my universalien got a lot of practice. It was good for me, I was happy.” He leaned back in his chair. He doesn’t have a tray but Strive isn’t sure if he’s already eaten or if he’s waiting to get food. Actually, Strive isn’t sure they’ve ever seen Lord Phobos eat.

“Why’d you leave Earth?” Strive asked. “You seem to like it a lot.”

“They had an overpopulation problem.” Phobos waves his hand. “And a pollution problem. And a refugee problem. Lots of problems- like everyone else in the universe. But they closed borders and did a big citizenship check. I fell below the cut and got sent out on an evac ship, heading for the next galaxy over. Lots of stuff happened after that, most of it wasn’t fun, but I ended up here. So it worked out in the end.” He turns his head toward the dining line again. Emmy is talking to another crew member, a very big and scaly programmer named Traycee. It looks like it’s going okay so maybe Phobos gave her a few vocabulary tips. “Besides, it’s made it easier to talk to some people. They know [Earth], and I know [Earth], so we have something in common. It works out.”

Strive stirred their spoon in the pudding and took a bite. It’s tasteless to them, but they prefer that. The rest of the meal looks similarly disinteresting.

“Hey Phobos,” They say and lean their chin against their hand, looking at their teammate with new interest. Not more appreciation, that’d be hard, but this is a new layer and Strive loves learning more about all of their teammates. “Can you tell me more about [Earth], and your home planet? And anywhere else you’ve gone. The universe is a really big place, isn’t it?”

Phobos looks at them and even though it’s hard to tell without an expression to judge, Strive knows that he’s smiling- or would be if he could.

“Sure is, kid. It sure is.”

* * *

It takes them perhaps a month to really _notice_ the extra ship in the compound.

There are many other ships, of course. It’s not just the Brigade’s fighters that occupy the whole dock. But the others all have uses. Supply liners, patrol jets, transport barges. This one never gets used, it just sits in an emptied out dock lock with a bunch of other spare parts. It’s older than most of the ships around, and battered in paint job and exterior shell and some weird attachments that are obviously screwed on and hanging by a thread.

They know it’s there, but they don’t start wondering until they see the lights glowing one day as they cross over towards the office to double check their schedule for training flights the next day. They don’t seem to be functional lights, but they’re beautiful, twinkling and catching on the chrome that shows through the orange paint job for the craft.

Strive changes direction, figuring that the office can wait a few minutes for them. It’ll just be a short detour.

They slip into the hangar and pad up to the ship, inspecting the dings in its hull and the worn out numbers on the ramp release keypad. There’s a call button and they only hesitate for a moment before pressing it down with their thumb and listening to the dial buzz.

“ _Yello!_ ” comes a familiar voice after a few moments and Strive gapes.

“Doctor Sung?” They ask, incredulous. “What are you doing?”

“ _Strive!_ ” He greets, completely unfazed by the younger’s surprise. “ _Come on in, I’m going through old photos.”_ The call cuts out and Strive is left standing there for a few seconds until there’s a high pitched buzz and the ship rumbles and a ramp drops jerkily down from the belly of the ship.

“Come in, come in!” Sung’s voice echoes out from inside and Strive grabs hold of the guard rail and pulls themselves up the ramp, a little worried that the thing is going to just give underneath their feet. “To your left!”

“Sung?” They call, turning as directed and finding themselves in a dimly lit hallway. At the end of it is a slightly ajar door, but Strive has to step around a number of boxes and strange decorations to get there. “What is this ship? Are you- whoa...” Strive stops, fingers still resting on the door as they get it open enough to fit their head through and stop. Because the room is full of stars.

“Strive!” Sung turns from where he’s standing in the center of the command deck of the ship and gives his teammate a cheery wave. “Make sure to close that behind you.”

Strive fits themselves through the door and pushes it shut, barely taking their eyes off the glimmering lights that swirl slowly around the room, glowing from the walls, ceiling, floor…

“What is all this?” They breathe, hardly daring to blink as they come to stand next to the doctor. Sung just chuckles and holds up a remote.

“Like I said, I’m going through old photos. This is from when I was travelling through the Stellson galaxy.” He clicks a button on his remote and the stars swirl, shifting into a different configuration. It makes Strive a little bit nauseous. “And this is the Coroo galaxy.” He turns around and taps at the projection of a star crawling along the back wall. “This is the planet I was coming from, Marapaco. The biomes are primarily tundras. They had the best hot drinks you’ve ever drank, Strive, let me tell ya.”

“What were you there for?” Strive asked, spinning in their own small circle to look at all the projected celestial bodies. “And where’d you get the pictures from? I didn’t know… you could take pictures of the stars.”

“The cameras for it aren’t cheap, I’ll tell you that.” Sung agrees. “But I’ve seen a lot of stars in my day. And I wanted to hold onto them. So I shelled it out and now I’ve got something from almost everywhere I’ve travelled. And that’s a lot of places.” He clicks the remote again and the room floods with color. Strive gasps at it as the vibrant clouds of the inside of a nebula drift across the walls of the command deck. “As for why? I was sight seeing. Have any atmospheric lights on your planet, Strive? The aurora on Marapaco is known across the whole sector. Hard to get along with the locals though, so I had some bartering to do to get a parking spot.” He reached out and patted the control panel.

“This is your ship?” Strive asked. “But, what about your ship for attack drills and boundary rounds?”

“That’s a fighting flyer, Strive.” Sung shook his head with a fond smile. “I couldn’t live in a thing like that. Too small, too many people looking wary when I landed outside of town. No, this is the ship that’s taken me to the far ends of the cosmos.” He tapped the remote again and another night sky drifted into place. Another click and they were looking over a cool purple planet with a moon that had its own moon. One more click and it was an asteroid field, chunks of twisted metal and glowing pieces of rock floating around in chaotic harmony. “I’ve spent most of my life drifting from place to place. Pick up something over here, put it down in another spot. And the only thing I’ve really ever wanted to keep was a vague memory of where I’ve been. Pictures couldn’t ever capture the beauty of the Marapaco aurora, but I remember the constellations of that sky, and seeing them gives me a gift. It reminds me of them, and I picture them in all their glory.”

“That’s amazing.” Strive breathes, trying to pick out something they know from the unfamiliar constellations. “I’ve… I’ve only ever seen my own sky. And it’s been years since there was anything there to see.”

“Pictures don’t do it justice, anyway.” Sung excuses. “They remind you of what you saw but a thing like that? You’ll want it in person.”

Strive bites their lip and nods.

“Still. It’s really nice to see… to sort of see stars again.” They lift a hand and pass it through the holo projection. The star passes right onto their hand, and they hold it in their palm for a moment before letting it drop.

“That’s a real truth.” Sung agrees softly. “I’ll tell you what Strive. My home is your home. That’s true here on base, we’ve established that well. But I mean it for here, too. I’ll give you the passcode and show you how to work the projector. Until we get your stars back, you can see all the stars I’ve ever seen.”

“Really?” They turn away from the projection, core pulsing with excitement. “But Doctor Sung, this is your ship! Your, your home!”

“That’s what I just said.” He grins. “This is mine and yours, kid. And that doesn’t end when we finally get that blackhole-wannabe pyramid out of the sky. That’s an always arrangement.” He sets the remote down on the control panel and reaches for a curtain that had kept the other doorway blocked off. “Come on, I’ll give you the grand tour.”

Strive hurries across the room but pauses when Doctor Sung holds open the curtain for them. Before they can change their mind they throw their arms around his torso and give him a tight squeeze.

“Thanks Doctor Sung.” They whisper and then duck through the curtain, smiling softly, stars dancing on the back of their eyelids when they shut their eyes.

It’s the clearest sight they’ve had of them in years. The reminder is enough.

Behind them, they can almost _hear_ Sung smiling. He hums.

“Anytime, kid.”

* * *

Strive can remember how dark things were when they first came to space. They’ll never forget it, really. The drifting shadows that were indistinguishable from the endless depths of emptiness. Once they got close enough they could tell they weren’t empty at all- they were wreckage. A space field full of ships that were crumpled up like tin balls and tossed into the darkest corner to be forgotten.

At that point, the universe was the darkest corner.

Now, it’s not even recognizable, not even reminiscent of that shadowy stretch of nothing. Two months since they left here, a week since they dispersed the void, and now it’s this. It’s been a long time coming. Strive guides their ship around the wreckage with ease and mostly watches the stars glitter around them. They haven’t been back to this sector since they left. They haven’t been back home.

“ _We’ll have to put this place on the list for the scrap crew,”_ Phobos buzzes in. “Y _our planet really doesn’t have the tech to get up here and clean this up?”_

“We probably could if we really wanted to.” Strive answers absently, they watch a particularly bright star pass overhead, disappearing as the view port ends. “But we don’t have the existing tech. The stars aren’t the kind of thing we’ve ever wanted to visit. Just admire.”

“We’ll get the space cleaned up in no time,” Sung assures them and Strive smiles. They pass a conglomerate chunk, several ships caught together in a twisted metal sculpture and, just on the other side of it, like pulling back a curtain to reveal something showstopping- Moebius. Strive almost crashes their ship when they see it. Their planet. They’ve never seen their home from space, never even imagined it, but here it is, more beautiful than they _could_ have imagined.

“ _Wow,_ ” Phobos says.

“ _That’s quite a sight for sore eyes,”_ Meouch huffs fondly. “ _Are you sure_ your _planet didn’t steal all the stars.”_

“It’s the crystals.” Strive says and they think they might be tearing up. “They’re glowing again.”

Phobos has showed them marbles from his second home planet of Earth. They’re small jewel like toys, like tiny globes you can roll around in the palm of your hand. Moebius looks like a marble now, and it’s the most beautiful one Strive has ever seen. It’s black or maybe a dark blue, but even from space you can see the veins and pockets of crystal ore gleaming, holding and releasing the starlight that enters them. From space it looks electric blue. The almost non existent atmosphere has regained the color that Strive remembers from ages ago, that blue and purple miasma that doesn’t block anything but floats through the sky like a tantalizing scent cloud from the old cartoons Sung has tapes of. It’s beautiful, Strive never wants to look away.

“ _Where is the best landing port for ships of this size.”_ Havve buzzes and Strive shakes themselves out of the stupor.

“Ah, no docks. We’ll just set down in an open space. There’s a lot of that.”

“ _What about finding your family? We want to be close.”_ Meouch reminds them but they just smile.

“Don’t worry, I know where I’m going.”

They skim around the outermost gravitational field for a few minutes as Strive watches the planet pass below them and then, like a heavy bell ringing, they feel their core stir when they come close to a darker stretch of planet. There aren’t as many crystals here, but Strive drops their ship down into the thick of it, knowing that it’s home.

The black slate rocks stretch on for miles and Strive guides their ship under one of the arches just because they can. The lakes and ponds of silver mercury reflect the brigade’s silhouettes passing overhead. Strive hardly recognizes any of it. It looks so different than it has for their entire life. Before they know it they see the arch that they _do_ recognize and the tips of buildings peeking over the wall. They signal that they’re going to land and coast down to skim to a stop along the ground. The rest of them fall in behind them and are probably checking their atmosphere monitors while Strive tumbles out of their own ship and onto familiar ground.

They should probably wait, but they don’t. They’re off across the slippery stone ground before they can even recognize how familiar everything is. They’ve been breathing universal air, feeling universal temperatures, flying through universal stars and space- but this is all _theirs._ It’s all Moebius, all of it is Moebian. And Strive is _home_.

There are people gathered at the arch but they don’t cross the threshold to the outside. It’s not that there’s actually anything there to protect them, but Strive can understand their hesitation. There are aliens parked on the front lawn, who would leave the safety of the porch? They slow as they get closer and the whispers reach them.

“ _Strivian…”_

_“Where have they been?”_

_“Someone get the Elder…”_

_“Are those ships for space travel?”_

Strive looks at the sea of faces. They know them all, at least in passing. But… none of them know Strive anymore. They stop, standing in front of people they’re supposed to know and wait for one of them to say something. To welcome them back, to ask _Strive_ where they’ve been. But none of them do.

Moebians have never been an adventurous people. They love what they have, they hold close family ranks, they gaze up at the stars and imagine what they might be saying. But no one ever wants to go up to them. Nobody ever wants to leave.

It seems that people aren’t supposed to come back either.

“Is this the right place, Strive?” Strive jumps as a heavy paw lands on their shoulder. Meouch is standing at their side, several heads taller than they are, and looking over the crowd with something like scrutiny. Like he doesn’t trust them. Ninja Brian appears on their other side, fingers twitching towards his sheathed daggers and Strive has to restrain themselves from reaching over to take them away. Just in case.

“All of the energy signatures present here contain an eighty percent identical match to Strive’s.” Havve says, lumbering up from behind as well. “They are of the same species.”

“Everybody on this planet should be Moebian, Havve.” Phobos says. His voice is muffled as he adjusts something with his mask. “They haven’t had visitors in at least a decade, I’d guess.”

“Let’s do our best and set a good example then!” Sung walked right past Strive and towards the waiting crowd of Moebians.

Hiding a smile, Strive followed, the rest of the team at their back, support on all sides.

Home was still home. It was even more so with the people that knew _Strive_ best here with them.

“Out of the way- Strive?” A voice cut through the crowd and it rippled, people passing glances and edging one way or another to make space. Doctor Sung paused, debating what might be coming next but Strive already knew. They took two steps forward, brushed past the doctor and out of his protective lead, and met their guardian right as he stumbled out of the crowd.

“Strive,” He breathed into their ear and they felt their core settle and still for the first time since seeing Moebius from space. “I was so scared. You never came back…”

“I came back,” they protested but there was no bite to it. They smiled and nuzzled into his neck, feeling the feathery touch of his beard against their cheek. “Look, I’m here!”

“After nearly two months!” He exclaimed and pushed them away, holding them at arms length as though to inspect them. “I expected you back in a few hours, chasing down some falling wreckage into the Barren, I sent out search parties- oh.” He ghosted a thumb over the faded scar on Strive’s cheek and his expression softened and hardened all at once.

“Strivian, what did you get yourself into?”

“Strivian?” Strive froze at the sound of a muffled snort. “Is that your full name? You have a full name?”

“Phobos!” Meouch hushes but he’s laughing too, just a little. “There’s nothing funny about it.”

“All this time I thought they were named a verb, I thought, alien naming conventions-” Phobos laughed again, “But they did have a full name. They just wanted to be striving- ha- oof. Brian!”

“Given titles are a part of our history.” the ninja intones, gaze as intense as ever. “But we choose our own monikers and those are what truly name us.”

Strive met his eyes and took a deep breath. The air was a little dusty and it was colder than any ship would ever be kept, well below universal standards. Strive could see the red glimmer of a thermal suit on all of their skins, even around Havve’s joints to prevent icing. Their guardian’s hand found its way onto their shoulder and they wanted to straighten under its weight.

Two worlds were colliding that were maybe never meant to intersect, but they were of two worlds now. And they couldn’t be themselves, couldn’t be _Strive,_ without them both.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you think : ) I love to chat and appreciate support~


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